Introduction
The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the appearance of new players in the Central Asian region, the most important of which is China. In the span of some twenty years, China has become a major trade partner and investor in the region. Its trade with nations in the region has grown impressively, from almost nothing in 1991 to more than USD 30 billion in 2011, with China being the region’s second-largest trading partner after Rus-sia. According to the Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, Wen Jiabao, Chinese direct investments in Central Asia by 2012 are estimated at USD 250 billion.1 China is extensively building oil and gas pipelines, developing a network of transportation links, “as well as expanding its diplomatic and cultural presence in the re-gion.”2
Scholars and experts on the region have devoted extensive attention to the question of what are the drivers of Chinese policies in Central Asia. There is a consensus among Western as well as Chinese and Central Asian researchers that the region is not the pri-mary focus of China’s foreign policy. China’s relations with the United States is its most important bilateral relationship, and perhaps the primary focus of its foreign policy, along with relations with Japan and other nations in North East Asia, with concerns over stability on the Korean Peninsula taking second place. South East Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region take third place in order of priority.3 However, one point that has been highlighted by most studies is that the aspiration to pacify the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang (officially the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region) constitutes the key factor that defines Chinese engagement with and presence in Central Asia.4 Thus, according to Sébastien Peyrouse, “If Chinese influence in Central Asia has evolved in the course of the two post-Soviet decades, China’s key interests have not changed. The
* Tukmadiyeva Malika is a recent graduate of the joint Master’s Program of the Geneva Univer-sity and the Geneva Center for Security Policy, Geneva, Switzerland. Her principal academic interest lies in the field of Central Asian politics (including Afghanistan and Xinjiang): energy politics, elites, nationalism, regionalism, and Chinese influence in Central Asia.
1 “China’s Investment in the Countries of Central Asia Are Almost $250 Billion—Wen Jiabao,”
Kyrgyz Telegraph Agency(2 September 2012); available at www.kyrtag.kg/?q=ru/news/26981.
2 Joshua Kucera, “Central Asia: What is China’s Policy Driver?” Eurasianet.org (18 December 2012); available at http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66314.
3 Sébastien Peyrouse, Jos Boonstra, and Marlène Laruelle, “China in Central Asia,” EUCAM (5 March 2013); available at http://isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Special-Feature/Detail/?
lng=en&id=160545&contextid774=160545&contextid775=160542&tabid=1454181096.
4 Sometimes also spelled “Sinkiang.”
Central Asian zone has strategic value in Beijing’s eyes owing to its relationship with Xinjiang.” 5
Huasheng Zhao, writing in 2007, argued that China’s economic interests in Central Asia are insignificant in terms of explaining Chinese interest in the region, while its role in guaranteeing the stability and economic development of Xinjiang and thus the territo-rial integrity of China is essential.6 Furthermore, he says that the logic behind the Chi-nese presence in Central Asia is inherently led by domestic pressures, particularly with regard to security needs.7 Prominent Kazakhstani sinologist Konstantin Syroyezhkin says that Central Asia is seen by China as a “strategic rear,” since the problems that take place in the region have significant impact on one of China’s Achilles’ heels: Xinjiang.8 As Stephen Blank emphasizes:
Xinjiang, like Taiwan and neighboring Tibet, is a neuralgic issue for China, which desperately needs internal stability in that predominantly Muslim, resource-rich and strategically important region. Beijing’s strategic and energy objectives are based on stability in Xinjiang, and its Central Asian policies grow out of its preoccupation with stability there.9
Although a study of the centuries-long historical, cultural, and ethnic ties between Central Asia and Xinjiang is of interest in itself,10 the emphasis that China places on Xinjiang with regard to its policy in Central Asia is a significant topic of study, as it highlights a number of characteristics and concerns of contemporary Chinese strategic thinking and strategic culture. China’s promotion of the idea of the “three evils” identi-fied by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)—terrorism, extremism, and sepa-ratism—gives insights into China’s priorities in the region.
5 Sébastien Peyrouse, “Central Asia’s Growing Partnership with China,” EUCAM Working Pa-per No. 4 (2009), 6.
6 As an extensive pipeline network between Central Asia and China is currently being ex-panded, Chinese dependence on Central Asia in terms of energy supplies is likely to grow.
Currently, China’s oil imports mainly come from the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, while Central Asia accounts for approximately 4 percent of Chinese oil, and 10 percent of gas imports, mainly from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. See Niklas Swanström, “China and Greater Central Asia: New Frontiers?” Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program (2011): 53.
7 Huasheng Zhao, “Central Asia in China’s Diplomacy,” in Central Asia: The View from Wash-ington, Moscow, and Beijing, ed. Eugene B. Rumer, Dmitriy Trenin, and Huasheng Zhao (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2007), 154.
8 “Interview with Konstantin Syroyezhkin,” ObshestvenniiReiting (1 December 2011); available at http://www.pr.kg/gazeta/number553/1927/.
9 Stephen Blank, “Xinjiang and China’s Strategy in Central Asia,” Asia Times Online (3 April 2004); available at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FD03Ad06.html.
10 Due to the limitations of this essay, it will not dwell upon the historical and cultural links be-tween Central Asia and Xinjiang. However, the links are apparent to the extent that Xinjiang has been continuously included by many experts within the larger construct referred to as
“Central Asia.” For further information on this topic, see Michael E. Clarke, Xinjiang and China’s Rise in Central Asia, 1949-2009 (London: Routledge, 2011).
This article is an exploration of the place of Xinjiang in China’s foreign policy to-ward Central Asia. It does not ask the question of what are China’s overall interests in Central Asia, and does not doubt that there are multiple Chinese interests in this region over and above its concerns with stability in Xinjiang. Instead, it turns the question around: What is the place of Xinjiang in China’s policy in Central Asia? Is China’s en-gagement with Central Asia mediated in any way by its domestic policies and concerns over Xinjiang? To restate the focus, the article is interested in finding out any and all relevant roles and factors that Xinjiang represents for China in Central Asia. Further-more, by doing so the study goes to examine the transformation of Chinese priorities and tactics towards Central Asia as well as to explore the way in which China has expanded its influence in the region. Thus, China in this paper is examined as an object, Central Asia as a subject, and Xinjiang as a factor.
The essay is also impelled by a number of other facts, such as the rapid development of Xinjiang in recent years, and the share of Central Asian states in Xinjiang’s foreign trade volume, accounting to some sources for approximately 83 percent, and being the region’s biggest trade partner.11 Moreover, about 80 percent of China’s trade with Cen-tral Asia is conducted through Xinjiang.12 However, it is important to note that this pa-per does not see Xinjiang as an autonomous actor, but as a factor of Chinese policy in Central Asia.
Xinjiang represents the only border China shares with Central Asia: more than 1,700 km with Kazakhstan, approximately 1,000 km with Kyrgyzstan, and about 450 km with Tajikistan.13 Moreover, Xinjiang is closely linked to Central Asia by historical, cultural, religious, and ethnic ties.
The clashes between ethnic Uighur and Han Chinese in Urumqi in 2009, which al-legedly resulted in over 200 deaths, arguably represented China’s most significant ethnic unrest in decades.14 China’s concern over Uighur ethnic separatism in Xinjiang has pushed it to increase the pace of development in what is its largest region, yet remains one of its poorest. China’s aspirations of “leapfrog development” and “long-term stabil-ity” in Xinjiang are likely to result in respective “leapfrog” increases of Chinese
11 Cobus Block, “Bilateral Trade Between Xinjiang and Kazakhstan: Challenges or Opportu-nities?” China Policy Institute Blog (7 February 2013); available at
http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/chinapolicyinstitute/2013/02/07/bilateral-trade-between-xinjiang-and-kazakhstan-challenges-or-opportunities/.
12 Niklas Swanström, “China’s Role in Central Asia: Soft And Hard Power,” Global Dialogue 9:1–2 (2007); available at http://www.worlddialogue.org/content.php?id=402.
13 Huasheng Zhao, “Central Asia in China’s Diplomacy,” 139.
14 Justin V. Hastings, “Charting the Course of Uyghur Unrest,” The China Quarterly 208 (2011):
911.
ence in Central Asia.15 And it is beyond any doubt that this development is already tak-ing place.16
Drawing from the main arguments made in the literature on Chinese influence in Central Asia, this article poses and aims to test three sets of hypotheses. The first hy-pothesis posed is: “Chinese foreign policy in Central Asia is an extension of its policy over Xinjiang.” This hypothesis claims that for Beijing, having cooperative regimes in Central Asia provides insurance that Xinjiang separatism will not be supported by these countries. Furthermore, the stronger the economic ties between Central Asia and China/
Xinjiang, the less rosy are the prospects for political/ethnic separatist movements.
A second hypothesis, competing with the first, is: “Xinjiang’s place in Chinese for-eign policy toward Central Asia is purely pragmatic and economic; the development of the previously laggard Xinjiang region is a goal with no relation to separatism.” Sub-hy-potheses are: “As one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, China pursues every market it can get, no matter how small or big.” Another: “Economic development of Xinjiang is in the overall development interests of China.”
A third hypothesis is: “Xinjiang is an element of Chinese foreign policy toward Cen-tral Asia as a great/major power.” Sub-hypotheses here can be stated as: “Xinjiang is the western frontier of China, bordering Central Asia, and its role is only that of such a bor-dering region” and “A pro-Chinese Central Asia is a way to prevent U.S. encirclement.”
Another sub-hypothesis: “Chinese policy in Central Asia is comparable to Chinese pol-icy in East and Southeast Asia – a strategy of gradual economic-based rise into major-power status and dominance.” Here it would be potentially interesting to test the fol-lowing sub-hypothesis: “If China’s ‘key’ to enter Southeast Asia was the Chinese ethnic and cultural presence there, the Turkic Uighurs of Xinjiang are a key to enter/link up with Central Asia.”
To summarize, the first main hypothesis might claim that Xinjiang is a significant separatist concern for China, and therefore its Central Asian policy is designed to ad-dress and manage that threat. The second main hypothesis claims that Xinjiang was poor (and therefore also separatist), so China’s strategy to develop Xinjiang was through trade and economic integration with Central Asia. The third main hypothesis is that Xinjiang is an element of China’s great-power strategy, and that Xinjiang’s Uighurs may serve as a useful link to Central Asia. The article will elaborate and test each of these as-sumptions, and see whether any of these hypotheses are able to provide helpful insights about Xinjiang and its relationship to China’s policy in Central Asia.17
This inquiry is relevant given the growing interest in the “Chinese Rise” around the world, as well as in academia. It will further analyze the topic of the often-neglected
15 Shan Wei and Weng Cuifen, “China’s New Policy in Xinjiang and its Challenges,” East Asian Policy 2:3 (2010): 61; available at www.eai.nus.edu.sg/Vol2No3_ShanWei&WengCuifen.pdf.
16 “Russian-Led Customs Union Intensifies Sino-Russian Rivalry in Central Asia,” Global Secu-rity News (4 August 2011); available at http://global-secuSecu-rity-news.com/2011/08/ 04/russian-led-customs-union-intensifies-sino-russian-rivalry-in-central-asia.
17 I would like to thank Dr. Emil Dzhuraev and Dr. Graeme Herd for their enormous support and invaluable assistance in defining and formulating the main focus and hypotheses of this paper.
Central Asian aspect of this “Rise.” As Niklas Swanström notes, “The implications of the growing Chinese prominence in the region will undoubtedly have a significance that extends beyond the region, and to fully grasp the potential (or threat) of this, it is crucial to understand Chinese intentions and the extent of its influence.”18 While it is true that a significant portion of the scholarship on Central Asia is devoted to studies of the grow-ing role of China in the region, this article offers a new perspective for framgrow-ing Chinese policies towards Central Asia through the lens of policies in Xinjiang.
Xinjiang and Central Asia: Elevating the Internal, Linking to the External The following sections of this article are aimed at testing the validity of the three hy-potheses posed above against the empirical realities of Chinese policies in Central Asia.
This section aims at testing the first hypothesis, which assumed: “Chinese foreign policy in Central Asia is an extension of its policy over Xinjiang.” This hypothesis claims that for Beijing, having cooperative regimes in Central Asia provides insurance that Xinjiang separatist movements will not meet with support in these countries. Furthermore, it as-sumes that the stronger the economic ties between Central Asia and China/Xinjiang, the lower the chances for political/ethnic separatist movements. This section seeks to dem-onstrate how China addressed the very realist goals of maintaining national security, ter-ritorial integrity in Xinjiang, and stability in Central Asia through the liberal means of economic expansion, regional integration, and development promotion.
Realist Needs
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, China found itself in a situation where it had to engage with a number of independent states to its west, instead of one Soviet super-power. Relief from the Soviet threat was soon replaced by the uncertain prospects of managing relations with the unstable and largely unknown region of Central Asia to its west, as well as the threat of regional Islamic and Pan-Turkic revival in terms of its pos-sible spillover into separatist Xinjiang. The dissolution of the Soviet Union coincided with the wave of unrest in Xinjiang in 1990–91, including an Islamist-inspired rebellion in the township of Baden.19 The level of threat perceived in Beijing due to the conver-gence of external and internal factors “was illustrated by Vice-Premier Wang Zhen’s ex-hortation during a visit to the provincial capital of Urumqi for the regional authorities to construct a ‘great wall of steel’ to defend the motherland from ‘hostile external forces’
and ‘national splittists’ internally.”20 Not surprisingly, the primary (if not the only) objective of Beijing’s policies in Central Asia throughout the 1990s was to guarantee stability in the northwest by dealing with the border issues and trying to ensure that the
18 Swanström, “China’s Role in Central Asia,” 12.
19 Michael Clarke and Gaye Christofferson, “Xinjiang and the Great Islamic Circle: The Impact of Transnational Forces on Chinese Regional Economic Planning,” The China Quarterly 133 (1993): 130–51.
20 Michael Clarke, “China’s Xinjiang Problem,” The Interpreter (10 July 2010); available at http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2009/07/10/Chinas-Xinjiang-Problem-Part-1.aspx.
newly established governments recognized and respected the “One China” discourse and controlled separatist elements within the Uighur diasporic community in the region.
Xing Guangcheng argued that, “to a larger extent the stability and prosperity of North-west China is closely bound up with the stability and prosperity in Central Asia.”21
Xinjiang, like Taiwan and Tibet, has historically been a land of constant unrest and struggles for territory.22 Michael Clarke claims “Xinjiang is arguably more important to China than Tibet. Xinjiang is China’s largest province, endowed with significant oil and gas resources, and acts as both a strategic buffer and gateway to Central Asia, with the province sharing borders with the post-Soviet Central Asian Republics, Russia, Afghani-stan and PakiAfghani-stan.”23 Moreover, it is a strategically important region, not only in terms of its natural resources and geostrategic location—historically serving as a security
“buffer zone” for “China Proper” against regular invasions by nomadic hordes, and (more recently) the Soviet Union (and perhaps Afghan instability today?)—but also be-cause the preservation of Xinjiang carries immense symbolic importance for Beijing.
Stability or instability in Xinjiang will have direct effect on other regions of China. Even though today it would be a highly unlikely occurrence, if Xinjiang succeeded in break-ing away from China and gainbreak-ing independence, it would undoubtedly destabilize other regions that share a long history of restless struggle for independence, most importantly Taiwan and Tibet, and perhaps Inner Mongolia as well.
The Uighur issue was the particular reason behind Chinese efforts to establish the
“Shanghai Five” dialogue between China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajiki-stan in 1996, and its institutionalization into the SCO in June 2001. Through the diplo-macy of “separatist containment with neighboring Central Asian states, China tried to assure control over Xinjiang.”24 Prior to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the SCO defined its priority to be multilateral cooperation against the “Three Evils” of
“separatism, terrorism, and extremism.”
After 9/11, Beijing was successful in turning the international situation to its advan-tage, the “Uighur issue” policy was given a new connotation, and was now conducted under the umbrella of the larger “War on Terror,” which became an omnipresent con-cept after the Al Qaeda attacks. Michael Dillon, in his article “Xinjiang and the ‘War against Terror,’” writes:
One reason for China’s enthusiastic espousal of the campaign against terrorism became clear when the Foreign Minister of the PRC, Tang Jiaxuan, claimed in a telephone conversation with his Russian opposite number Igor Ivanov in October 10th [2011] that China was also the victim of terrorism by Uighur separatists…By defining all
21 Ann McMillan, “Xinjiang and Central Asia: Interdependency, not Integration,” in China, Xinjiang and Central Asia: History, Transition and Crossborder Interaction into the 21st Century, ed. Colin Mackerras and Michael Clarke (London: Routledge, 2009), 96.
22 Stephen Blank, “Xinjiang and China’s Strategy in Central Asia.”
23 Clarke, “China’s Xinjiang Problem.”
24 Donald H. McMillen, “China, Xinjiang, and Central Asia: ‘Glocality’ in the Year 2008,” in China, Xinjiang and Central Asia: History, Transition and Crossborder Interaction into the 21st Century, ed. Colin Mackerras and Michael Clarke (London: Routledge, 2009), 9.
tist activity in Xinjiang as terrorist, the government of the PRC is hoping to obtain carte blanche from the international community to take whatever action it sees fit in the region.25
China was also successful in concluding agreements with its SCO partners (as well as Pakistan and Nepal) that allowed the extradition of alleged Uighur “terrorists” to China.26
Liberal Means
Chinese presence in the economies of the Central Asian states has been experiencing a boom, as China is steadily and inevitably overtaking Russia’s position of the biggest economic partner to the region.
China is investing massively in the construction of infrastructure like railways, roads,
China is investing massively in the construction of infrastructure like railways, roads,